The invention provides an alternating current electrospray technology that can generate micron sized droplets in oil at very high throughput for emulsion or digital PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). This technology outperforms the throughput of the current gold standard in droplet generation using flow-focusing technology by at least a factor of 100. The design is simple and can generate a billion to a trillion monodispersed droplets in about one hour. This is much faster than flow-focusing which is limited to a few million droplets per hour. The droplet size and generation rate can also be easily adjusted by changing the voltage of the AC electric field. The range of produced droplet sizes is about 1-100 microns, wherein the droplets are monodispersed in size.

The invention relates to an automatic response/light measurement device and a method therefor, and the purpose is to effectively and quickly perform an optical measurement relating to a reaction with high reliability without increasing a device size. The device is configured to have: a container group in which a plurality of reaction containers are arranged; a measurement mount provided with a plurality of coupling ends that are joinable with apertures of the reaction containers, and have light guide portions that optically connect with the interior of the joined reaction containers; a mount transfer mechanism; a measuring device having a measuring end having at least one light guide portion that is optically connectable to the light guide portions of the coupling ends, that is able to receive light based on an optical state within the reaction containers; an on-mount measuring end transfer mechanism; and a measurement control portion.

Disclosed herein are microfluidic actuators for selecting objects in a fluid stream comprising a plurality of objects. In some embodiments, the actuator comprises an object detection means adapted for, upon arrival of an object, identifying whether an object is an object of interest. It further comprises a heater adapted for generating a jet flow for deflecting an object of interest from the fluid stream and a controller for activating the heater as function of the detection of an object of interest using a nucleation signal. The controller is adapted for obtaining temperature information of the heater and for adjusting a nucleation signal for the heater taking into account the obtained temperature information. Also disclosed are microfluidic systems and diagnostic devices comprising the microfluidic actuators of the disclosure, as well as methods of use thereof.

The present invention describes a versatile, robust and environmentally controlled platform with a linear temperature gradient for massively parallel chemical or biochemical processing. This apparatus is capable of probing the phase transition behavior of macromolecules in solution, both thermodynamically and kinetically. This includesbut is not limited toliquid/liquid phase transition behavior of antibody solutions and in situ gelation of thermo-responsive polymers. The device can be operated in a multiplex fashion using a controlled temperature gradient architecture and visualized by dark field microscopy or by other optical intensity measurements.

The present invention relates to an apparatus for nucleic acid amplification and, more particularly, to an apparatus for nucleic acid amplification capable of rapid nucleic acid amplification by rapidly heating and cooling a reactant in a reaction vessel for a chemical/biochemical reaction requiring a temperature change, and a method for temperature control in nucleic acid amplification.

A reaction processor includes: a vessel installation unit for installing a reaction processing vessel provided with a channel formed in a substrate; a high temperature heater and a medium temperature heater for adjusting the temperature of the channel of the reaction processing vessel; a vessel alignment mechanism for adjusting the position of the reaction processing vessel 10; and a housing that has a housing main unit and a cover portion capable of being opened and closed with respect to the housing main unit and that houses the vessel installation unit, the high temperature heater, the medium temperature heater, and the vessel alignment mechanism. In conjunction with the state of the cover portion being changed from an open state to a closed state, the vessel alignment mechanism aligns the reaction processing vessel such that the reaction processing vessel can be heated by the high temperature heater and the medium temperature heater.

Systems and methods for light based heating of light absorbing sources for modification of nucleic acids through fast thermal cycling of polymerase chain reaction are described.

Systems and methods for light based heating of light absorbing sources for modification of nucleic acids through fast thermal cycling of polymerase chain reaction are described.

A microscope slide staining system has a chamber, a plurality of slide support elements, a plurality of spreading devices positionable in association with microscope slides supported on the slide support elements so the spreading devices define a gap between the spreading device and the microscope slide and so the spreading device and the microscope slide are movable relative to one another to spread at least one reagent on the microscope slide independent of the other spreading devices and microscope slides.

This disclosure describes various microfluidic devices that may be used in thermal cyclic fluid samples. Some of these devices may include a plurality of microwells that may be coupled by interconnected fluidic channels. These microwells may not be physically separated and yet may include features allowing for effective isolation of target molecules within each microwell. Other devices may include a plurality of microwells that may not be interconnected. The devices may also include mechanisms for causing a fluid to flow across the device. The devices may also include light-absorbing films for converting light energy to heat so as to allow for thermal cycling of samples within the microwells.